Greetings from Berwick and Danville!

It has been one year since officially beginning our church planting residency with Iron Mill Church! I wanted to give you an update on our progress so far and inform you of some of our near-future plans. The Glenn family has been busy “multiplying” our chicken and rabbit populations and playing a lot of Little League Baseball!

Why are we doing this?

As we continue to build relationships and integrate into the community of Berwick, we are continually reminded of the reason we feel called by God to plant a church. People need Jesus. There are roughly 10,000 people living in the Berwick borough and 20,000 people in the Berwick zip code. It is our desire to introduce these people to Jesus and restore the community. We have a goal to start a small group meeting in our home by the end of this summer or early fall. Our hope is that our small group becomes our launch team, and we would launch worship services a year after beginning our small group. So, this means we are looking at late summer or early fall of 2023 for our official launch date.

Personal growth

This year brought many growth opportunities for me. I was officially licensed as a Pastor of the Christian & Missionary Alliance denomination in October, and I have now started the process of full ordination. The ordination track will take 30 months, and I am currently being developed by one mentor alongside of another person in the ordination track. I’m looking forward to this development process!

I have also had the opportunity to preach at Iron Mill and other Alliance churches over the past year. You can view any of my Iron Mill sermons at www.ironmillchurch.com. By reading some books on preaching and being coached by our lead Pastor, Jason Sullivan, I have become more efficient in my sermon preparation, my delivery has started to feel more natural, and I have been relying less on my notes.

Another huge opportunity for growth was my time at Exponential conference. You can read about my Exponential experience in full at www.plantgrowsend.com, but it was a great time learning a lot about church planting, multiplication and building relationships with other like-minded folks from our district.

Lastly, the Greenhouse residency program has played the most impact in my growth. I have now wrapped up Phase 2 of the Greenhouse plan. There are 4 phases total. I feel the specific areas of growth have all been beneficial to me, especially in the areas of preaching, leadership, and prayer.

Growth at Iron Mill

Over the past year, we have had many opportunities to observe and learn about healthy church culture. First, we were a part of a small multiplication within Iron Mill. We had joined a community group in Bloomsburg, which quickly grew out of the living room space. Last Fall, we multiplied into a second Bloomsburg community group. While it was hard initially to leave the relationships we had been building, leading this group has been a great blessing!

On Easter Sunday, we saw four people publicly proclaim their commitment to follow Jesus by being baptized! One of these individuals was our oldest son, Declan! A few weeks prior, we saw a couple being baptized, just a few hours before they renewed their vows! We have also seen two salvations (in 2022 so far!) and multiple people re-dedicate their lives to Jesus. Praise God for lives being changed!

We have also seen an emphasis on evangelism. On December 26 and January 2, I and Pastor Jason preached two messages on the “BLESS” Lists, which focuses on sharing the gospel through ordinary rhythms of life. We have also committed to increasing the budget for local evangelism to 10%, increasing the percentage incrementally over the course of the next few years.

We have also seen a commitment to consistent and predictable patterns of prayer within Iron Mill. Each Sunday, members of the Prayer Team are available after the service. The Elders pray over their shepherding groups and church matters during one of their monthly meetings. Community groups are praying for one another. We also see a full service dedicated to prayer once a quarter and other times of prayer being added to worship services.

A personal story

I had the opportunity to see someone begin their relationship with Jesus! We’ll call this person Bill. Bill had met my Dad at the hospital, where my Dad works. They began talking about Jesus, but Bill didn’t have a Bible. My Dad told Bill he should check out Iron Mill because we would give him a free Bible. Bill came one Sunday while I was away, and one of our Elders, Sam, met Bill and gave him a Bible. When I met Bill the following Sunday, he told me he had lots of questions about the Bible and wanted to chat. His questions boiled down to, “how do I know if I will go to heaven when I die?” After walking through the Romans Road with Bill, he prayed and accepted Jesus into his life! Praise God for life change!

Thank you!

If you have prayed or given financially, you have played a part in our church planting process! THANK YOU! We would ask that you continue to pray for God’s guidance as we build relationships in Berwick and look forward to starting a community group in our home in Berwick. We are still looking for more financial partners. If you are interested in supporting our church plant financially, you can send checks made out to Iron Mill Church with “Iron Mill Greenhouse” marked on the memo line. The address is 2 Church Hill Rd, Danville PA 17821. You can also give online at https://ironmillchurch.com/give/ by choosing “Iron Mill Greenhouse” in the drop-down menu instead of “General.”

Thank you for your generosity! We are celebrating God’s faithfulness as we hit the one-year mark of our Greenhouse residency program!

Brandon Glenn

In March of 2022, I had the opportunity to go to Exponential conference. In case you’re not familiar with Exponential, it is a week-long conference focusing on the topic of multiplication. Much of the focus is specifically church planting related. We gathered with over 5,000 people in one large amphitheater. Worshipping together with that many like-minded people was an amazing experience. The week was filled with great training. I have categorized the highlights in these five categories.

1. District relationships

Our Eastern PA district of the CMA rented a house and a few vehicles. There were 11 of us total. We spent the whole week staying in the same house, eating meals together, even sharing some bedrooms. Funny story—another guy and I shared a kid’s room where I slept on a Lightning McQueen bed and he slept on a batman bed. It was a good laugh. We got to share our thoughts with each other after each days’ events. Although I didn’t really know many of these people before this week, I feel like our relationships grew before we flew home.

2. Spirit-Empowerment

The theme for the entire conference was “Empowered.” We focused on the Holy Spirit’s empowerment in our lives, churches and nations. It was exciting to hear each of the main five speakers talk about different aspects of how the Holy Spirit empowers us.

3. Workshops

During the week, there were four different workshop sessions. There were probably 50+ choices. They also arranged the workshops into certain tracks. I chose the “church planting” track. Three of the workshops I attended were hosted by Passion4Planting, a church planting network and resource hub that is based out of New Life Christian Church in Chantilly, VA.

These workshops were the most applicable for me and my position. I heard from church planters with all levels of experience. I heard from a few church planters who had planted multiple churches. I also heard from one church planter who had not yet celebrated his church’s 1-year anniversary. We talked about launch teams, vision, mission, outreach, multiplication within the church, financing, legal documents, and so much more.

4. Confirmations (CMA-wide and district)

While at Exponential, I believe God confirmed some things for our ministry. First, I believe God confirmed our call to church planting and renewed my passion. Second, I believe God confirmed our choice to move to the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination. We met as a denomination for two four-hour sessions before the conference. We talked about “not planting alone” and catching the wave of the Holy Spirit in a way that moves us into a church planting movement. Lastly, I also believe God confirmed our choice to be a part of the Eastern PA district of the CMA. Being with the people in our district house for the week and building relationships was a great confirmation. Part of this confirmation came because of the way many people were talking at Exponential is the way we do things in our district already.

5. Applications/Next Steps

I had two main “next steps” or applications after the end of the conference. The first thing I felt I should do is read the book of Acts. A number of speakers used the book of Acts for their messages and a couple talked about using Acts as a model for church planting. I need to familiarize myself with the book of Acts and how the early church functioned.

My second next step is to be intentionally looking for ways to train the next generation of church planters. Our desire is that once we plant a church in Berwick, we would bring on a greenhouse resident and continue the process of planting more churches.

Thank you!

If you gave to our greenhouse fund, you played a part in allowing me to be a part of this training. So, THANK YOU! We are still looking for more financial partners. If you are interested in staying up to date with our needs, follow our blog! If you are interested in supporting us financially, you can send checks made out to Iron Mill Church with “Iron Mill Greenhouse” marked on the memo line. The address is 2 Church Hill Rd, Danville PA 17821. You can also give online at https://ironmillchurch.com/give/ by choosing “Iron Mill Greenhouse” in the drop-down menu instead of “General.”

Thank you for your generosity! We look forward to keeping you up to date through this greenhouse process!

Serving Christ with You!

Brandon Glenn

Greetings!

It has officially been six months since beginning our Greenhouse Church Planting journey! What a blessing these first six months have been. We want to praise God for the blessings and progress made over the last six months. Looking back, there’s no doubt that the Holy Spirit has empowered this journey! My prayer is Paul’s words, that my speech and message would be in the power of the Spirit, so that our faith may rest in God, not in the wisdom of men (1 Corinthians 2:4-5). In this letter, I plan to highlight some of the bigger items. If you would like to hear more specific things we’ve been up to, our monthly updates are available on www.plantgrowsend.com.

Phase 1 – Checklist

There were a number of items on our checklist that we were able to accomplish. This included a lot of observation and reading. For a full list of books I’ve read, check out www.plantgrowsend.com.

Preaching Opportunities

I’ve continued to have preaching opportunities about once per month. When we started at Iron Mill, Pastor Jason Sullivan had just started a series called “Gifted,” where we talked about spiritual gifts and gifts of the Holy Spirit. Then, we went into a series called “Fear Itself,” followed by “Hope in All Season” – an expository look at 1 Peter. All of my sermons are available on Iron Mill’s website (ironmillchurch.com) under the Sermons tab. You can then click on “Preacher” and choose Brandon Glenn.

Pastor Jason has been coaching me to be less dependent on sermon notes. When I began at Iron Mill, my routine was to manuscript my sermon, practice it around eight times, then take my full manuscript with me to the pulpit. Over the course of these six months, I have learned how to be more efficient in my preparation time, and I am now taking just an outline version to the pulpit.

Multiplication

We initially joined a community group in a home in Bloomsburg. The living room quickly ran out of space as the community group continued to grow. We decided it was best to multiply out of this group and create a second Bloomsburg community group for Iron Mill. I’m currently leading this group with the expectation that we will be multiplying out of this new group again next year to begin a new community group in the Berwick community.

District Conference

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend my first District Conference! Having only experience with independent churches, this was an entirely different experience for me. It was great to meet many other Alliance workers in our district and hear the vision being cast for our area. At this conference, our lead Pastor, Jason Sullivan and I (pictured above), were interviewed to give God the praise for bringing us to where we are currently, and we pray that after hearing our testimony other churches in Eastern Pennsylvania would also be willing to pursue a Greenhouse journey.

Licensing

As of October 28, I am officially licensed as a Pastor of the Christian & Missionary Alliance. This is the first big step towards ordination. The CMA has more of a discipleship model when it comes to ordination. I will be paired with an ordination mentor, read books and write papers over the course of the next two years until I will be ready to sit for an Ordination Council interview.

Looking Ahead – Phase 2

Over the next six months, I have a new set of checklist items to learn and grow in. The four phases of the Greenhouse program are Look, Learn, Lead, Launch. I will be learning in areas of prayer, preaching, coaching, teamwork, small groups, evangelism, and more.

Thank you!

We can invest our time into preparing for church planting because of generous people making financial contributions! If that’s you, THANK YOU! We appreciate the prayer and financial support so far! We are still looking for partnerships. If you are interested in staying up to date with our needs, follow our blog! If you are interested in supporting us financially, you can send checks made out to Iron Mill Church with “Iron Mill Greenhouse” marked on the memo line. The address is 2 Church Hill Rd, Danville PA 17821. You can also give online at https://ironmillchurch.com/give/ by choosing “Iron Mill Greenhouse” in the drop-down menu instead of “General.”

Thank you for your generosity! We look forward to keeping you up to date through this greenhouse process!

Serving Christ with You!

Brandon Glenn